Category Archives: Private Equity

The European leveraged finance markets swallowed five new dividend-related transactions totalling €2.24 billion in November, as a lull in M&A activity in the fourth quarter allowed issuers to hit the market with opportunistic transactions.

For much of the year, such dividend-related issuance has not been possible as M&A transactions dominated the primary market. “We’ve just had a six-week period with no M&A, and it’s been the first real opportunistic window we’ve seen this year,” said one market participant. “When the window is there, why would private equity turn down the chance to return money to shareholders and protect its returns?”

But while there was a small spurt in dividend recap supply in November, the dominance of M&A activity over much of 2018 means the volume of opportunistic recaps seen so far this year has still fallen well behind some previous years.

The loan market has hosted roughly €5.87 billion of dividend activity so far this year while the bond market has taken €1.41 billion, for a total of €7.28 billion, according to LCD. While this is higher than the totals recorded in 2015 and 2016 on this measure (at €3.67 billion and €5.61 billion, respectively), it is still way behind the record-breaking volume racked up in 2017, when the market was dominated by opportunistic activity.

The dividend recaps seen so far in 2018 have resulted in some €2.64 billion being returned to shareholders via the leveraged finance market, which is well below the average of €4.5 billion for the 2006–2017 period. By contrast, in 2017 roughly €8.15 billion was returned to shareholders from the proceeds of deals in the bond and loan markets. — Nina Flitman

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

Leverage on European loans continues to tick higher, rising to 5.4x as of mid-November, the highest since the 6x in 2007, before the onset of the financial crisis, according to LCD.

And at 4.8x, leverage through the first-lien debt of a loan issuer’s capital structure is the highest it has ever been, while the surge in second-lien loan issuance this year adds another 0.35x of leverage, double that of last year.

This picture is broadly similar to that seen in the U.S., save for one key difference: There hasn’t been a mellowing in attitude towards the European Central Bank’s guidelines regarding leverage, as these were already deemed toothless by the European market. The knock-on effect from the less-stringent approach to the U.S. guidelines is likely to have had more of an impact, market sources say, though European bankers are far keener to say they remain conservative, if only due to self-regulation.

“The ECB is another item to discuss in [credit] committee,” explains a banker. “But if a credit is going to be declined, it’s usually way before we get to the ECB questions. We don’t need the ECB to tell us to consider cash flow valuations — that is just how leverage finance works. I’m not sure that our acceptance/decline rate has changed since the guidance.”

“We will always be careful as it’s our business,” notes a head of origination. “It’s part of our thought process but I think at the moment, market conditions will impact underwriting more. That said, there are some quite aggressive pitches out there, and it is the U.S. banks leading the pack.” – Luke Millar

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

The market for second-lien leveraged loans in Europe has increased to the extent that it often offers a real alternative to high-yield bonds.

This has become the case even if demand for this relatively risky type of debt tends to be credit-specific, and even if the costs for second-lien are higher (they are).

But for borrowers in a strong position or that are well known to market, the spread over LIBOR paid by issuers on second-lien loans has narrowed enough that – when combined with the product’s inherent flexibility – it is an increasingly appealing subordinated capital choice for private equity sponsors, market players say.

The depth of demand for the product was illustrated recently when Sivantoswrapped a €500 million second-lien to take-out the major part of a bridge loan previously destined for high-yield. The size of this deal underlines how second-lien has moved from a niche and relatively minor source of capital to the mainstream – even if sources caution few borrowers have the same pull as the hearing-aid maker.

LCD data shows an increase in both deal size and volume, though these remain significantly short of those seen prior to the crash. This is because second-lien issuance is now frequently privately placed, whereas it was almost always syndicated in the pre-crash years. As such, when pre-placed deals like Sivantos are captured in the data, it is clear there has been a surge in second-lien volume over the past year.

As its name implies, second-lien debt is repaid after the more-senior, first-lien debt is repaid, making it inherently riskier. – David Cox

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

EBITDA adjustments, or add-backs, have been a hot topic in the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets over the past few years as private equity shops undertaking large M&A deals increasingly rely on this technique for financing.

Of course, these adjustments – where a PE shop or acquiring entity can add an expense back to profits, significantly improving a transaction’s pro forma numbers – are not without controversy. Debt investors complain vociferously that, via add-backs, actual risk is being masked, as borrower leverage down the road will be understated if the rosy earnings numbers detailed now don’t actually come to pass.

The largest portion of these add-backs comprises synergies, or the potential financial costs savings of combining two companies.

But just how much risk do these adjustments/synergies add? If a transaction’s debt/EBITDA ratio has crept higher based on adjusted EBITDA alone, how much riskier are these deals if EBITDA adjustments are stripped out?

A significant amount, apparently, when looking at the more aggressive deals in market, and when considering synergies. For example, a relatively slim 8% of U.S. leveraged loans backing M&A had pro forma debt/EBITDA of 7x or higher this year, including synergies, up from 5% last year and on par with 2014. While this metric has risen in recent years, it remains far below the 2007 record of 17%.

Assuming, however, that expected synergies are not achieved, the share of M&A transactions levered at 7x or higher jumps to 17% this year, up from 14% in 2017 and just a few percentage points below the 2007 record of 19%. – Marina Lukatsky

This story is part of a longer piece of analysis, available to LCD News subscribers, from LCD that details add-backs/EBITDA adjustments in detail.

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

Thanks to a spate of big-ticket deals in September, leveraged buyouts in the U.S. are larger now than at any time since the financial crisis.

During the third quarter the average size of an LBO transaction hit $1.8 billion, according to LCD. That’s up from $1.375 billion during the same period a year ago and is near the record $2 billion average in 2007, at the height of the last credit cycle.

Boosting the 3Q18 numbers are some jumbo LBOs, two of which entail large cross-border leveraged loan components. Chief here is the $17 billion majority buyout of Thomson Reuters’s Financial & Risk unit, now called Refinitiv (link, plus a list of the largest leveraged financings of all time). As well, Carlyle and GIC recently closed financing on their $11.7 billion LBO of Akzo Nobel Specialty Chemicals.

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

Included in the webinar: Transaction activity has always been impacted by numerous outside factors. Recent complications include Brexit, trade wars, and tariffs. With numerous potential influences, what is the current state of the market, based on these latest trends?

Join S&P Global Market Intelligence for a complimentary webinar, where industry experts share their insights while focusing on the M&A, Debt, and Private Equity transactional markets.

Analyzing recent global M&A volumes and factors driving activity. What is the outlook of M&A deals for the US?

Debt markets and LBO activity: What is the current state of the market?

Deep dive into private equity including buy and sell-side conditions and strategies

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

While leveraged loan issuance in the U.S. slowed in 2018’s third quarter, LBO activity surged, thanks to huge credits backing Refinitiv, Akzo Nobel, and Envision Healthcare.

These three deals comprise nearly 40% of all LBO loan activity over the past three months. The remaining $30 billion is not exactly small potatoes. In total, LBO activity in the third quarter hit $48.3 billion, a record, according to LCD. – Staff reports

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

So far this year $90 billion of credits backing buyouts have been launched or completed in the syndicated loan market, nearly as much as in all of 2017, according to LCD.

The 2018 LBO loan figure has received a huge boost of late via a spate of jumbo transactions. Chief among them is Refinitiv, which includes $6.5 billion of institutional loan debt backing Blackstone’s $17 billion takeover of Thomson Reuter’s financial data and technology unit (the PE firm is acquiring a 55% stake). The loan portion of the deal was targeted for $5.5 billion, but was increased due to investor demand.

Tellingly, the high yield bond portion of the Refinitiv financing was decreased at the same time, illustrating the clear preference that speculative-grade debt investors have for loans this year, compared to bonds

As is often the case, LBO loans and other M&A deals are in keen demand from institutional investors as these credits generally offer higher pricing and richer returns than do non-M&A credits, because of their increased leverage and often-aggressive terms.

Of course, with the chance for higher returns comes more risk. This is especially the case today, as most credits completed in market now are covenant-lite, meaning they are less restrictive for the issuer, and consequently offer investors and lenders less protection during the life of the loan.

Indeed, of the $90 billion in LBO loans so far this year, $78 billion is cov-lite. This tracks with the overall U.S. leveraged loan asset class, which now totals some $1.1 trillion, according to the S&P/LSTA Index. Roughly 80% of those outstandings are cov-lite. – Staff reports

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.

Web.com Group completed the covenant-lite term loan financing for its buyout via a Morgan Stanley–led arranger group, according to sources. The $1.095 billion first-lien term loan due 2025 (L+375, 0% LIBOR floor) priced at an OID of 99.75, and the $420 million second-lien term loan due 2026 (L+775, 0% floor) came at 99.25. Both priced tight to talk, and the first-lien was increased by $15 million to replace revolver draws. Financing also includes a $100 million, five-year revolver with a springing leverage covenant. Proceeds are being used to finance the take-private buyout of the company by Siris Capital in a roughly $2 billion deal. Web.com Group is a global provider of internet services and online-marketing services for small and midsize businesses. Terms:

With the global surge in mergers and acquisition activity so far in 2018, M&A has been a big driver of leveraged loan activity. This is especially true in Europe, where M&A accounts for nearly three-quarters of all leveraged loan issuance, according to LCD.

LCD comps is an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence. LCD’s subscription site offers complete news, analysis and data covering the global leveraged loan and high yield bond markets. You can learn more about LCD here.